Opinion

It’s not every day I go to see a horror movie at the cinema. But the great Gabriel Byrne was in Hereditary. So I had to see it.

One of the reviews said Exorcist-scary Hereditary. was a “ruthlessly disturbing” supernatural story that is also “an intricate meditation on mourning”. Another review cited the poet Anne Carson’s answer to the question, Why does tragedy exist? “Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”

Gabriel is brilliant as a shrink named Steven in a family, as another critic put it, who are unhappy in ways that yer man Tolstoy could never have dreamed of. After the funeral of her mother, Gabriel’s wife asks him: “Should I be sadder?”

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